From character to habitus in sociology

The idea of social character has a long and important history within sociological thought. The concept addresses the fundamental question of the relationship between society and the individual, structure and agency. Tracing the development of the idea of social character from the classical sociology of Marx and Weber to more contemporary writings within American sociology by figures such as Fromm, Reisman, and Mills reveals ideas and perspectives central to the development of social theory. Although many argue that the idea of social character is no longer important in sociology, it has in fact resurfaced in Pierre Bourdieu's notion of habitus. Habitus specifies the original idea of social character without the biological or essentialist traits found in most of the earlier work. Habitus marks a substantial advance beyond earlier ideas of social character, providing a more purely sociological answer to the structure/agency (society/individual) problematic.